CHAMP CAR: Friday Mexico City Notebook

GOOD DAY FOR MEXICO David Martinez, who originally hails from Monterrey, turned in a fine performance Friday afternoon by posting seventh-fastest time of qualifying. Martinez finished up the session 1.3 seconds adrift of provisional pole winner Sebastien Bourdais but just .074sec ahead of Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Paul Tracy.

In contrast to his debut with the Forsythe team at Surfers Paradise, Martinez had the benefit of having raced a Champ Car at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez last year when he subbed for the injured Tracy in the Indeck Lola-Ford-Cosworth and finished ninth. That experience makes a world of difference for Martinez.

"Here it is much easier," said Martinez. "I have last year's braking points as reference where I had no experience at Surfers Paradise — if you missed your braking point you had nothing to hit but a concrete wall, which would cost you the session. So I'm very comfortable here and I also know a bit better what I need from my car's setup."

Martinez was one of a handful of drivers to run Bridgestone alternate tires in the second half of the qualifying session. Most drivers reckoned the alternates were worth from a half to as much as a full second a lap. But while most drivers will have twice as many sets of alternates to use on Saturday, Martinez is happy with his plan.

"I'm still a rookie and learning about everything," he said. "I have the experience of one run on the alternate tires to sleep on tonight, and I am sure I will be able to use my second set better tomorrow."

Martinez's compatriot Mario Dominguez didn't enjoy quite as much success Friday, putting the Tecate-sponsored Pacific Coast Motorsports Panoz 10th on the provisional grid. Then again, considering he has been suffering from pneumonia and spent time in the hospital earlier this week, Dominguez did a pretty good job. Although he was appreciative of the work of the medical professionals, Dominguez says he also benefited from local support.

"The fans here are so supportive, it is very rewarding," he said. "I am feeling better, I think with a good nights sleep I will be even better and strong for sure on Sunday. We made a lot of progress in the Tecate car today, but we definitely need to improve. We made several changes between the two sessions to find some grip and I think we went the right way. "

BOURDAIS STILL ON FOR TORO ROSSO — AS FAR AS HE KNOWS If there's anything to the rumor du jour that David Coulthard will move "down" Red Bull's Formula 1 pecking order to Toro Rosso to make way for Fernando Alonso at Team Red Bull — thus bumping Sebastien Bourdais from his ride at Toro Rosso — the Frenchman hasn't heard it.

"As far as I know I'm testing for Toro Rosso in Barcelona next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday," said Bourdais, who would theoretically be paid handsomely by Red Bull to spend another season with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing under the above scenario. "But then, the drivers are always the last to know."

Get the inside scoop on Dario Franchitti's switch to NASCAR in our December issue, on sale now.

You'll recall that Justin Wilson also came to last year's Champ Car race in Mexico City with a cast on his wrist (albeit his right wrist) after snagging a stack of tires used as an apex marker at Surfers Paradise. Power cracked a couple of bones in his left wrist in his coming-together with Legge and so drove with a cast in the morning practice — and duly recorded fourth-best time. He took off the cast in the afternoon qualifying. The good news is that he recorded third best time of the day. The bad news . . .

"In practice we had it strapped on really tightly," said Power, "but the brace is too restrictive. You get your hand jammed up and you can't turn. So before qualifying I took off the strapping and then I had a moment out on the track and hurt it a little bit more. I've just got to deal with it and do like Justin did last year and deal with the pain and get it done."

Wilson knows whereof Power speaks.

"It makes life a lot harder driving with one hand," he said. "It's possible, as Will is finding out. But it's strange because I remember last year on the Friday morning I ran with the brace and everything felt OK. But I felt the brace were a bit too clumsy, so I decided to take it out for qualifying. I went out and I hurt my wrist in qualifying, just like Will did today.

"The pattern is quite interesting. We say, once it feels good, I can run without it. You go out there and you clip a curb or get sideways and it strains it again. I'm sure tomorrow Will will have the brace back on, slightly modified, and it will be working just fine."

BAD DAY FOR BRUNO AND TAG Coming off three consecutive podium finishes, Bruno Junqueira arrived in Mexico City looking for a fourth straight top three and a shot at the top five in the Champ Car points. But his weekend got off to a less-than-wonderful start when he found the Sonny's Bar-B-Q Panoz a real handful on Friday.

"The car is bad," he said after posting a 1:26.190, good for 10th on the provisional grid, "and I made a lot of mistakes. We made some adjustments to the gear ratios on the car after the morning session, which did help improve the cars overall performance, but we need to make it better again for tomorrow. And we will have both sets of Bridgestone alternates.

Alex Tagliani had an even worse day, turning a 1:27.277 in Rocketsports' PBS Equities Panoz that was good only for 16th best.

"There is not much I can say," he said. "The Rocketsports car is just not where we need it right now. We were off to a positive start this morning when we were sixth in practice but we went the wrong way on setup this afternoon."

R-E-S-P-E-C-T How do you keep your motivation up when you've clinched your fourth straight Champ Car title, it's the last race of the season — and as far as you know — you are scheduled to drive for the Toro Rosso F1 team next year? Easy, says Sebastien Bourdais. You respect yourself and your teammates.

"I think it would be completely disrespectful to my team to project myself already on next season this weekend," he said. "My Champ Car career will be over on Sunday night and not before that.

"I know I'm not going to win any races any time soon in Formula 1. I'll try and get better and better and be competitive and run out there and do the best we can, but I'm not expecting to win races next season at all. So I'd really like to win here on Sunday. I really want to enjoy myself as much as I can and would love to enjoy myself in different ways in the near future. So we'll see how it goes."

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE From the looks of things, Neel Jani (9th) and Robert Doornbos (12th) didn't have a whole lot to celebrate on Friday. But appearances can be deceiving. Jani was one of a number of drivers who opted not to save both his sets of the Bridgestone alternate tires for qualifying on Saturday, and so was comparing himself not to the quickest drivers overall but to the quickest drivers on Bridgestone primes. From that perspective he was pleased with his first day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the Red Bull Panoz.

"On my first set of blacks (Bridgestone primes) I was quite good," he said. "I think I was fourth at the end of the run and we still had time in my pocket, one or two tenths. Most of the guys went on reds for their second run, we decided to stay on blacks because tomorrow the track will be quicker and he used the second run as a test session. We tried a change to the car but that didn't work out as well. I am only ninth on the charts but still I am happy because I know we will be quicker tomorrow."

Nor was Doornbos overly concerned with the fact that he failed to crack the top 10.

"It's obviously not where we wanted to be after the first day, but it is still early" h,e said. "We're actually closer than it looks. The times are very tight, but we need to improve for tomorrow, and have some homework to do tonight. We saved our red tires to use tomorrow, and we know there is a lot to be gained with them."

As Doornbos noted, the times are indeed tight. From David Martinez (7th fastest) to Doornbos (12th fastest) it's a matter of .164sec.

Doornbos, by the way, likened the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to Suzuka noting in particular, the endless succession of esse bends leading onto the back straightaway reminded him of the esses at the former home of the Japanese Grand Prix. With one major exception.

"The esses at Suzuka are smooth," he said. "So you just go with the proper setup for those types of turns. These esses are so bumpy you need to make some compromises with the setup."

GOOD ROOKIES Former Champ Car Atlantic rivals Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud both enjoyed good first days at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with the American slotting into fifth on the provisional grid, one spot ahead of the Frenchman.

"The track is great," enthused Rahal. "We need more like it. Good permanent road courses. It's really dirty and slick but a lot of fun.

"We still need to find a bit of speed in the car though. It was difficult to do that lap time. It's always tough to find the last bit out of these cars but certainly today it was a little more difficult. A little bit of time makes a lot of difference here because if you can get a little more time through the esses, every one single corner adds up to quite a bit since there are five or six turns in a row. We should be able to get up there if we can improve the car a little bit."